Happy Birthday to Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (1893-1982)
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (1893-1982) - Image from the University of Maryland
Originally uploaded by Thomas Roche Born December 11, 1893, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams was the daughter of Edward Stratemeyer, head of the Stratemeyer syndicate that created the Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins lines, plus literally dozens of other juvenile properties. Harriet herself wrote Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Bobbsey Twins books under each series' house pseudonyms.
With her sister Edna, Adams took is credited with maintaining the business through the Great Depression after her father's death in 1930. In the '50s and '60s, she also reportedly started revising the books to take out some of the "racial and ethnic references," according to the awesome page Girls Series Books Rediscovered at the University of Maryland. If you've read the original Stratemeyer Books, or even the ones from the '50s, you probably know what I'm talking about. Those Brungarians could be so inscrutable, and why did the "agents of a foreign power" in the WWI-era works always have black mustaches?
Anyway, back to Harriet: a short list of her works at her Find-a-Grave site, but none of it's in the public domain so you'll just have to visit your public library, where plenty of these series are probably still safely ensconced in the juvenile section.
Happy Birthday to the ghost of Mrs. Adams, and for what it's worth: "To Tom's consternation, the computer had come unhinged from its moorings with a thundering CRASH and was sliding toward the railing of the tiny schooner! With a cry of surprise, the blogger's hand hurtled toward the PUBLISH button -- but would it arrive in time?"